How to beat the cold callers: Tips to fight phone pests that are driving you mad

A crackdown on nuisance calls was announced last week, but there are already tools available to block pests from getting to your phone.

More than 80 per cent of us receive unwanted marketing calls – typically twice a week, according to industry watchdog Ofcom. Most relate to payment protection insurance, while energy companies, market researchers and insurers make up most of the rest.

Companies making unsolicited calls and texts will be fined up to £500,000 in a Government clampdown from next month. New powers will be granted to the data-monitoring watchdog Information Commissioner's Office to tackle callers who cause 'nuisance, annoyance, inconvenience or anxiety'.

Warning: Nicola Lloyd Williams was pestered by a car dealer

There is no cast-iron way to stop all nuisance calls from getting through – bar pulling out the phone line from the socket in the wall – but there are measures you can take to make it difficult.

The Telephone Preference Service pledges to stop many sales calls. It is run by the Direct Marketing Association, which has more than 950 members.

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Phone users who sign up to this free service should stop receiving unsolicited telesales and marketing calls from these members. Yet Ofcom says the service fails to stop up to two-thirds of unsolicited calls – from non-members and foreign companies.

Gadgets help to filter callers

Another way to combat unsolicited calls is to invest in a gadget designed to filter them out.

These gadgets include the £30 Call Saint Nuisance Call Blocker and the £40 CPR 1200 Number Capacity Nuisance Call Blocker.

These can both block anonymous callers who have withheld their number, specific numbers you want blocking and show incoming call details.

The £60 BT 8500 Advanced Call Blocker phone enables you to block calls not on a contacts list. Other callers must give a name to get through.

BT also offers a BT Privacy service for £1.75 a month that allows you to see the number calling. For £4.15 a month you can sign up to the BT Choose To Refuse service that blocks up to ten specific numbers.

BT also has an Anonymous Call Rejection service costing £5.05 a month that stops calls from people or services that withhold a number.

Nicola Lloyd Williams, 44, from Chester, Cheshire, says: 'I signed up to the Telephone Preference Service for my home phone and it has certainly made a difference. Only the occasional payment protection insurance company now sneaks through.

'But my mobile number was not included and I was pestered on a fortnightly basis last year by a local car dealership that wanted to sell me services I did not want.

'Despite politely declining their offers and asking them never to bother me again, it made no difference. Last month I got angry with the company boss and said I would report it to a regulator unless the firm stopped hounding me. This warning did the trick.'

Nicola, who runs children's clothes shop Chateau de Sable in Chester, adds: 'What would happen if every trader I dealt with treated me this way? Any service I used – from buying bananas to knickers – would be cold-calling me. Life would be intolerable.'

Telecoms watchdog Ofcom regulates silent calls while the Information Commissioner's Office regulates most other calls. But both struggle to act against foreign-based marketing firms that often hide their number.

An Ofcom spokesman says: 'We are working on how to crack down on nuisance calls from abroad. We urge people buying goods, especially online, to ensure they do not give their consent to any follow-up marketing by ticking – or failing to tick – a permission box when making the purchase.'

Recorded messages make up almost a fifth of nuisance calls, while live marketing calls make up more than a third. The equally infuriating silent call treatment also makes up a third.

Nuisance calls: The Telephone Preference Service pledges to stop many sales calls

Silent calls occur when automatic dialler systems used by call centres make more calls than they have people available to take them – and you are greeted with silence before the line cuts off. An abandoned call is when a company calls – either in person or through a recorded message – but when you answer they then might just hang up.

Last year Ofcom fined two firms – home efficiency provider Green Deal Savings and MYIML, a firm that makes marketing calls on behalf of others – £20,000 each for making thousands of abandoned and silent calls.

The record fine imposed by Ofcom was £750,000, handed out to home insurer HomeServe in 2012 for abandoning calls. Telecoms provider TalkTalk received an identical penalty in 2011 for similar practices.

Ofcom received 40,000 complaints about silent or abandoned calls last year while the ICO received 175,000 complaints about nuisance calls and texts. An ICO spokesperson says: 'The law change gives consumers a chance to fight back.'